A couple of people have mentioned that I haven't update recently so I thought I would comment on a recent local issue here in Toronto, since it is something that could affect me as a resident of this fair city.

As part of the waterfront revitalization efforts, a proposal has been made to the city to demolish the Gardiner expressway and replace it with a multilane boulevard in order to improve the aesthetics of the downtown core. Combined with several other highway enhancements in the area, this would serve to reduce the number of cars (and thus the noise and pollution) in the immediate downtown area. This is a good idea, it is ridiculous to have a major highway right through the very heart of the city. If you want to get down here you should take public transit from the outlying regions or be prepared to drive on normal roads and fight for a tiny number of parking spots. Downtown should not be centred around cars.

Anyway, I like the idea of getting rid of the Gardiner and opening up the land for green space and business and such, but the project would cost up to a billion dollars and would take almost a decade to complete. I understand the idea of long term investments, but I think that it would be a better idea to put the money towards the ever-struggling TTC and commuter services such as GO. If public transit were greatly improved, it is possible that traffic downtown would be reduced through the voluntary actions of people as opposed to being forced to stop without a viable alternative. The current services are sufficient for current usage, but I doubt they would be able to handle the additional strain if the main road into the core were to be removed.

The real problem of course is that there isn't money to do anything, and that regardless of what happens, something needs to be done with the Gardiner because it is old and falling apart. As it is, it costs more than ten million dollars per year to maintain it. That's just no good.